Kalpesh

Introduction

TL;DR

Preview

Deepdive

Testing

Troubleshooting

Reception

Reflection

An

AR experience

for

India Art Fair 2026

Mobile app

AR app

UX design

Visual design

Client:

India Art Fair w/ Artist Afrah Shafiq

What is Sample This!

India Art Fair is south Asia's leading modern and contemporary art fairs, held annually in New Delhi. The Future is Born of Art is an annual commission by IAF in partnership with BMW India. In 2026, they commissioned artist Afrah Shafiq, whose concept The Giant Sampler imagined the facade as a giant embroidery sampler: a surface stitched with motifs from embroidery traditions across cultures and centuries.

To extend the experience beyond the physical, IAF wanted to add an interactive layer. The result was "Sample This!" an AR app that brings the facade to life through animation, and invites visitors to explore the cultural stories woven into each motif.

TL;DR

Challenge

Designing an AR app for a 430ft outdoor installation within 3 weeks, for an audience unfamiliar with AR, with a visual language that had to match the artwork.

Solution

Guided onboarding that gave cultural context before asking anything of the user.
Real-time toast guidance during scanning.
A bespoke visual system derived from embroidery traditions, aida textures, stitch borders, thread-derived colours.

Guided onboarding that gave cultural context before asking anything of the user.
Real-time toast guidance during scanning.
A bespoke visual system derived from embroidery traditions, aida textures, stitch borders, thread-derived colours.

Here's what the app looked like

Check out the live app on the app stores

Now let's dive deeper…

Discovery

Given the compressed timeline, I started with studying AR mural projects, scanning-based apps, and AR UX accessibility guidelines.

The key insight: IAF visitors i.e. art collectors, curators, enthusiasts are moving through a busy outdoor fair with limited patience for friction. In unfamiliar AR environments, users abandon.

This meant the app needed:

Clear onboarding
Guidance during scanning
Minimal interface complexity

UX design

I adopted a non-linear process since the beginning. I mapped the IA, moved immediately into wireframes, and began shipping screens to developers section by section rather than waiting for a complete design phase. Visual design ran in parallel, with close coordination with the artist to lock the visual language early.

Visual design

The biggest and most deliberate design decision was to build a custom visual system that felt cohesive with Afrah's artwork, not a generic app that happened to display art content.

Specific decisions:

Background textures on cards use aida fabric — the grid cloth used as the base for cross-stitch embroidery
Borders and dividers use embroidery stitch patterns
Colour palette derived from actual embroidery thread colours, anchored by the palette of a rattle motif from Karnataka's Kasuti embroidery tradition
Typography and layout designed to feel editorial and considered, not utilitarian

This was developed collaboratively with Afrah, who provided direction, feedback, and visual references throughout.

Testing

The app went through multiple rounds of testing with a printed sample of the facade was used to test scanning behaviour and UI interactions in early phase. The final testing was conducted at the fair venue in Delhi, with feedback shared remotely by the on-site team.

Mid-project challenge

The original design had two scan modes on the home screen: scan facade (to see the animations) and scan motif (to trigger a motif card for individual motifs). The scan motif feature required image recognition technology that the initial development team could not reliably implement within the timeline.

This wasn't the outcome I wanted. But the decision was the right one. A partially working feature that misfires in the field is worse than no feature. The motif gallery remained fully functional, and the scan facade experience worked smoothly.

If I were to redesign this, I would have pressed harder for technical feasibility validation earlier in the process, and would have advocated for locking the developer team before the design process began.

A new developer was brought in at a late stage. With limited time remaining before the fair, a difficult decision was made: the scan motif feature was removed from the final product. I pushed for retaining the motif cards accessible via gallery, but the direct scan-to-card flow was cut.This wasn't the outcome I wanted. But the decision was the right one. A partially working feature that misfires in the field is worse than no feature. The motif gallery remained fully functional, and the scan facade experience worked smoothly.

Reception and impact

The app launched publicly on Apple App Store and Google Play Store at India Art Fair 2026, with the installation live across three tent facades in New Delhi in February 2026.

Visitors were seen delving into the AR world with the app while receiving coverage across several publications discussing the intersection of art and technology.

Coverage included:

Outlook India — "The artificial in art: at the intersection of AI and tech at India Art Fair 2026"
Harper's BAZAAR India — "An insider's guide to India Art Fair 2026"
STIRworld — "India Art Fair 2026 and more in Delhi: the STIR list of must-see exhibitions"
The Voice of Fashion — "From Abramovic to ancestral stitch: inside India Art Fair 2026"
FE Leisure — "The art fair preview: this year, the India Art Fair goes beyond spectacle"

Reflection

This project sat at the intersection of a digital product, a physical installation, and a cultural collaboration; which is where I do my best work. If I were doing it again: lock the development team before design starts, validate the riskiest technical features first.

With more time, I'd reintroduce motif scanning, enable deeper motif exploration, and build experiences that work beyond physical proximity to the facade.

Got an idea for a project?
Let's work together.

kabhavsar.1996@gmail.com

An

An

AR experience

for

for

India Art Fair 2026